| Welcome, Guest |
You have to register before you can post on our site.
|
| Online Users |
There are currently 157 online users.
» 0 Member(s) | 155 Guest(s)
Bing, Google
|
| Latest Threads |
Video Madness XII
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: Mamorien
8 hours ago
» Replies: 24
» Views: 980
|
Fic Update Thread 58: the...
Forum: Other People's Fanfiction
Last Post: robkelk
9 hours ago
» Replies: 252
» Views: 15,711
|
Dearly Departed of 2025
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: Jinx999
Yesterday, 03:04 PM
» Replies: 72
» Views: 5,698
|
Image-Dump Thread 30
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: Norgarth
Yesterday, 08:03 AM
» Replies: 179
» Views: 13,222
|
Am I the Only One Seeing ...
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: robkelk
07-26-2025, 02:01 PM
» Replies: 2
» Views: 81
|
All The Tropes Wiki Proje...
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: MorningDaylight
07-26-2025, 10:33 AM
» Replies: 5
» Views: 213
|
Crossovers that should be...
Forum: Other People's Fanfiction
Last Post: Norgarth
07-26-2025, 10:15 AM
» Replies: 164
» Views: 18,555
|
Crossovers That Should No...
Forum: Other People's Fanfiction
Last Post: Norgarth
07-26-2025, 10:13 AM
» Replies: 229
» Views: 23,313
|
More Political Images thr...
Forum: Politics and Other Fun
Last Post: Norgarth
07-26-2025, 10:11 AM
» Replies: 174
» Views: 18,409
|
Kick ALL the Starters, Pa...
Forum: General Chatter
Last Post: Mamorien
07-25-2025, 09:51 PM
» Replies: 41
» Views: 5,787
|
|
|
| 2016-09-18: Moving Days, Part III |
|
Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 10-30-2024, 09:15 PM - Forum: Stories
- No Replies
|
 |
Moving Days, Part III
A "KanriKyara" Story
by Robert M. Schroeck
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Sunday, September 18, 2016
"Hi," he shouted over the idling cycle engines. "My name's Keiichi Morisato. My friends and I were told you could help us?"
I traded a glance with Peggy, smiled and shook my head, then turned back to Keiichi and held out my hand. "I'm Bob Schroeck," I said as we shook. "This is my wife Peggy, and we're the managers here at Douglass Gardens. I take it Bell sent you our way?"
His eyes went wide. "You know Belldandy?" he asked.
Peg and I laughed. "She's kind of our boss," Peggy said.
"One of them, at least," I amended. "Do you know... well, what's going on?"
He glanced at his companions — one of whom I tentatively identified as his sister Megumi — and after a shared look of incomprehension, he turned back to me. "We haven't a clue. One moment we were in Whirlwind's office, and the next we were in an empty lot in a neighborhood about a mile or so that way." He waved westward down Hamilton Street. "Belldandy showed up, gave us your address and took off again."
"Mmm," I said, nodding. "Yeah, sounds about right. The Celestials are in emergency mode right now, and barely have time to breathe."
"Emergency mode?" the one I thought was Megumi asked.
"Yeah, they..." Peg started, but I raised my hand.
"Hold on, let's do this inside. Park, come on in, and we'll explain everything," I said. "No point standing out here when we can be sitting comfortably."
Half an hour later, we were all sitting around the TV in the living room in our apartment. We'd gotten all the introductions out of the way. Yeah, the girl I'd thought was Megumi was, and the other two were Chihiro Fujimi and Sora Hasegawa — names I recognized, at least. Peg and I had given them the whole spiel — what was it, the third time that weekend we'd done it? — complete with selected episodes from both the 1993 OVA and the 2005 TV series, both of which we had in our collection — and we were letting them adjust to the idea.
"Okay, then," Chihiro finally said. "What happens now?"
Peg and I shared a grin. "We give you a place to live," she said.
"It's what we're here for," I added. "You just have to decide who rooms with who."
"In that case," a new, familiar voice said a full-length mirror that purely by coincidence hung conveniently where someone could step through it as though it were a door, "I would like very much to share an apartment with my husband, if I may."
"Hi, Bell! Come on in!" Peggy said with a broad smile on her face as Belldandy did that very thing and joined us in the living room.
"Belldandy!" I called out at almost the same moment. "Please make yourself comfortable," I added.
Bell smiled benevolently at us as she glided around the various chairs to where Keiichi sat. She bent down to give him a brief but very obviously loving kiss before turning her attention back to the rest of us. "I'm afraid I'm too busy to do more than make a token appearance and request I be included among the new residents."
I huffed. "Like you have to ask," I said with a smirk.
She beamed. "You may feel it goes without saying, but it still is only proper that I do ask."
"And our answer remains the same." I smiled. "How could we possibly say no? I presume you two will want a one-bedroom to yourselves? Given that you're still newlyweds?"
Belldandy blushed prettily before looking to Keiichi, who was doing an almost stereotypical "nervous anime male" thing with his hand behind his head. "Yes, please," she said.
Peg and I traded smiles, then I nodded briskly. "Done! Peggy, you want to set them up so Bell can get right back to the very important business of saving the multiverse?"
"Right," she said and got to her feet.
As she led Keiichi and Belldandy over to the "office" area to set them up with an apartment, I looked back at Chihiro, Sora and Megumi. "How do you three want to work this? We have enough room to give you each your own apartments, and big enough units that you can share one if you'd rather do that instead."
For a moment they were silent as they looked at each other. Then all three started talking at once.
Long story short, Bell and Keiichi got their newlyweds' nest in Building 3. Megumi and Sora decided to room together, and Chihiro was happy to have a one-bedroom to herself. We had to put them all a couple doors down from where the open units actually began, because we still had to clean up the apartments the Bakuon!! girls had used the previous night. But that was okay, it let us put them all adjacent to each other with shared front and back porches.
Anyway, once she got her key and took a quick look at their new place, Bell rushed back to Heaven via the apartment's bathroom mirror to pick up where she'd left off in emergency operations. We took the other four out to do Funtom-funded shopping for the usual immediate displacee needs — clothes, toiletries, and initial groceries, and once all the necessities were handled anything else they might want or need, within reason.
Just to complicate matters, in the middle of all that I fielded a call on my cell from my Uncle Arthur in which he let us know that he and Aunt Linda would be on the East Coast and thus able to visit sometime towards the end of October. Which would be great, we hadn't seen them in all too long, but at the moment it was just one more thing in a way too busy day.
And when all that was done with, we had our second "welcome" dinner of the weekend. As thirty-some people ate and socialized, it occurred to me that this was not going to be a sustainable tradition. There was enough room for the current crowd to not feel cramped, especially if they spread out over both floors of the community center. But it wouldn't take many more new residents before it would simply be impractical. Not to mention before we reached a point where Funtom's accountants refused to reimburse us for the meals.
Belldandy put in another appearance, staying just long enough to eat a small plate of chicken hibachi and cuddle with Keiichi for a little while. Before she left again, she pulled Peggy and me aside.
"I'm sorry," she began. It was the closest we'd been to her since the previous weekend, and I realized that behind the immortal beauty and the serene gaze, I could actually see the stress in her eyes. What a difference a week had made. "We have our hands full in Heaven at the moment, and I haven't been able to acquire all the paperwork Keiichi and our friends need." She gave a brittle little laugh. "Or myself, for that matter, now that I will be spending far more time here than I initially planned."
"Is there anything we can do to help with that?" Peggy asked.
Bell nodded. "There is, in fact, something you can do. If you contact Robert Thompson at the Boston residence — I believe they're calling it Warehouse 13 now — he and one of his residents can arrange everything we need."
I nodded solemnly. "We'll take care of it first thing in the morning."
"Oh, thank you so much," Bell said, and hugged us both. "I'm sorry, I need to leave now."
"Go, go, what you're doing is more important than us," I said, waving toward the mirror.
"No, you are very important, too," she said.
"Just not that important!" Bob countered with a smile.
"Don't forget to say good-bye to Keiichi first!" Peggy admonished as Bell turned toward the already shining glass.
Belldandy gave an embarrassed little giggle, "Oh, of course!" She dashed around various of our residents to where Keiichi was sitting chatting with Sawako and Lafarga, dipped in to kiss him, then dashed back to the mirror. She practically dove through the gleaming portal it became for her, in too much of a hurry to traverse it more gracefully.
Monday, September 19, 2016
First thing in the morning, as I had promised Bell, we left a message at Warehouse 13 explaining we had five people needing paperwork and asking for a call back. Then we headed over to the community center, where we got a bit of a surprise.
"Okay," I said. "I didn't order that."
"I didn't order it, either," Peggy replied.
I shook my head. "I'll be the one to ask the obvious question. Where the hell did that come from?"
"That" was a cabinet — about shoulder high with two full-length doors, nicely finished hardwood or a very convincing veneer, positioned in a previously unoccupied space along one wall of the community center's "living room", blocking one of the few power outlets one could easily reach in the room. It hadn't been there the night before. Peg and I'd been there past eleven cleaning up from the welcome dinner, and we could both testify that no anomalous furniture had made itself known to us by the time we shut off the lights and locked up for the night.
"Is there anything in it?" Peg asked.
I nodded sagely. "Good question. Cabinets do usually hold things."
She gave me a flat look. "Go open it."
I gave her my own flat look right back. "If something jumps out at me, I'm blaming you."
She swatted my upper arm with the back of her hand. "Just go."
"While you stand safely back here," I muttered as I headed toward the mystery furniture.
"Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah," she snickered, grinning broadly while rapidly nodding her head.
"What a cruel woman I married," I jokingly muttered as I approached it. "Sends her husband into mortal danger while she stands back where nothing can get her." I grasped one door handle in each hand.
"Yup. And don't you forget it," she sing-songed back at me as I yanked the doors open, then ducked.
Nothing happened.
"How's the mortal danger?" Peggy asked from her safe location outside the living room.
"Surprisingly undangerous," I said before looking up.
"Well?"
"My god," I said. "It's full of amps."
And it was. Four shelves each holding three miniature guitar amplifiers thoroughly filled the interior of the cabinet, leaving almost no room for anything else. Each one was about a foot tall and maybe 14 inches wide, with a full array of little knobs, an input jack, and various labeled LED indicators, one of which was glowing a cheery green. I straightened up, reached in, and took one out, grasping it by a handle that had been molded into the top of its black plastic case. As I did, I realized it had been sitting inside a form-fitting pocket or rack, at the bottom of which was a little round pad I recognized as an induction charger like the ones we had for our cell phones. I glanced at the amp I held, and realized that its green LED was now out.
I stepped back from the cabinet and brandished it at Peggy. "Amplifiers. Miniature, guitar, twelve each. Someone has given our girls a present."
Peggy was at my side in just a few steps. "Twelve? We have only, what, six guitarists."
"Right now, at least." I shrugged as I put the amp back in its socket. "And you never know who might sit in."
"I suppose," she mused. She looked the cabinet up and down as I shut the doors. "But where did it come from?"
I gave her a look. "Have you forgotten who our bosses are?"
"But..."
I held up a hand. "I'll call the support line later and ask. Okay?"
She pursed her lips, then nodded grudgingly. "I suppose."
One of the next things on our agenda that morning was a task that we would have taken care of on Sunday had Keiichi, Megumi, Sora and Chihiro not shown up literally moments after the world's cutest biker gang had departed. Which was cleaning up the apartments said biker gang had used.
"Cleaning up" makes it sound like they'd left a mess behind. They hadn't. But we did need to do a few minor things, like collecting the trash, making sure the sinks and tubs were clean, neatening the living rooms, and finally stripping the beds, followed by washing and folding the linens before returning them to the units. They really hadn't been there long enough to make a mess of the apartments, nor did we really expect them to. But there was some basic housekeeping that needed doing. (Less for Hayakawa's apartment, to be sure, but still...)
One thing I noticed — I don't think that Peg did (and I didn't mention it to her) — was that while one pair of girls had slept in separate beds, the other had shared a bed. Based on more than a quarter-century's experience with a shared bed, I was certain from the state of the covers that there had been some major cuddling going on. (Although given the evidence at hand, no more than that.) I couldn't remember which pair had taken which apartment, but I felt it was highly unlikely to have been Hijiri and Lime. Besides the age difference and Lime's characterization in the anime, in real life she had struck me as almost asexual, at least insofar as I could realistically determine something like that after socializing with her for only a few hours.
Which left Onsa and Rin.
What I remembered of the anime made that pairing... unlikely. But not so unlikely as to be impossible; god knows I've seen odder couples form (and stick) in a dozen different shows and real life. Not for the first time that weekend I regretted never watching all the way to the end of Bakuon!! — for all I knew they got together in the last episode or something.
Whatever. It wasn't really any of my business. Nor was it my job to speculate on relationships, especially between displacees who didn't live at my residence. I wished them the best of luck (and an amicable break-up if/when one happened), and went back to stripping the bed.
Once the laundry and restock of the apartments was complete, Peg and I retired to our apartment just in time to receive a call back from Robert "Call me Kestrel" Thompson, which I put on speaker.
"Good to talk to a couple more of my fellow managers," he said after the greetings and introductions were done with. "You're the second and third ones I've spoken with."
"Who was the first?" Peg asked.
"Brent, out in California, just a few days ago."
"Brent Laabs?" I asked.
"That's him."
"I know him — he and I and a few others run the All The Tropes wiki," I said. "I guess Funtom got their money's worth out of the ad they posted on my forums. Anyway," I interrupted myself, "that's neither here nor there. Belldandy told us to call you to get all the paperwork for four new residents who just showed up yesterday — and herself."
"I can do that for you — well, me and one of my residents. I'm sure you've heard of him — HAL 9000."
I felt my eyebrows crawl up into my fading hairline. "HAL? Really?"
Kestrel laughed. "I get the feeling everyone's going to react like that. Yes, HAL. We — well, he — set Brent's undines up with full histories and paper trails, and we can do the same for your new folks. Who are they, anyway?"
"A few people near and dear to Belldandy's heart," I replied. "Chihiro Fujimi, Sora Hasegawa, Megumi Morisato and last but certainly not least as far as Bell's concerned, her husband Keiichi Morisato."
"Husband?" Kestrel sounded as surprised as I had felt just a few moments earlier. "Really?"
"Yes, really!" Peg said with a laugh.
"Two years now, at least here," I added. "They got married when the manga ended in 2014. We don't know how long it's subjectively been for them, though." I paused, shot a sly grin at Peg, and continued, "They still act like newlyweds, so take that for what it's worth."
"Wow, no pressure, huh?" Kestrel said with an obvious smile in his voice. "I'd better tell HAL to pull out all the stops, especially on hers."
"Can't hurt to butter up the boss," Peggy giggled.
"Okay, so how do we do this?" I asked.
"Right," he said. "We'll do this the same way we handled the undines. That means a video call with your new residents sitting in. HAL interviews them for what they need, and takes stills from the video link for anything that needs a headshot."
Peg frowned. "Won't someone get suspicious if they're wearing the same outfit in every photo of them?"
"No worries there," Kestrel said. "HAL can do this thing that's like Photoshop cubed, and creates different clothing on every image he uses. Very realistic, too. Generative image editing, he calls it.1 He's not very imaginative, but for that kind of thing he doesn't need to be." Kestrel laughed again. "He says he enjoys using that function, because it's something he wasn't allowed to do while he was serving in a scientific role."
"No, I guess he wouldn't be, would he?" I mused. "Don't want your data archivist idly altering your photos."
"Yeah, that would be kind of counterproductive." He chuckled. "Anyway, we can take care of this whenever's convenient for your people. Tonight, tomorrow, now — whatever works."
"What about Bell?" Peggy asked. "She's incredibly busy right now and probably can't just pop in for a phone call."
Kestrel considered that. "Well, we can do up everything but sit on it until she can give us a moment to take a headshot. Or maybe Keiichi has a photo of her in his wallet?" He shrugged. "We'll work it out one way or another."
"Sounds reasonable." I glanced at Peggy, who was already picking up her cellphone.
"Let me phone them right now," she said.
Long story short, Keiichi and co. were available, not really having anything else to do at the moment. Fifteen minutes later we were in that video conference. An hour after that, everything was set.
"I have arranged for everything that can be delivered by mail or express to be so," HAL said. His voice, while not quite exactly the same as Douglas Rain's, was still close enough to be eerie. "I have sent an email to your displacees.yggdrasil accounts with the locations and hours of all the offices and institutions where you must pick up your paperwork in person. You should have everything you need in your hands within a week if you do not delay." Fortunately their motorcycles — like the Bakuon!! cast's bikes — had arrived with local license plates in place instead of Japanese, plates that already had valid records in the MVC2 systems. Why that had been handled automagically and nothing else was, we couldn't figure.
"Thank you, HAL," Kestrel said, his face replacing the iconic red-lit lens. He was a heavy-set guy with glasses and a five-o'clock shadow, which hadn't matched the mental image I'd formed in speaking with him on the phone first. (Then again, I'm usually wrong about that kind of thing.) "That should be everything," he went on, "so I guess..."
"Oh, wait!" Peggy interrupted him.
I turned to look at her. "What's up?"
"The knights and Ascot," she said. "They're... um..." She trailed off as her dysnomia — an infrequent problem which hadn't bothered her much in the last couple weeks — suddenly kicked in and once again messed with her ability to express herself. I frowned and wracked my brains for why those four kids were relevant to the call at hand.
Those four kids...
Oh, of course. "Right!" I patted her hand and turned back to the monitor. "Kestrel, we also have four displacee minors who just showed up on Friday morning. Well, we have more than just them, but they all got IDs and paperwork from the Celestials. Except the kids don't have any family with them, and the paperwork didn't include anything about who's looking out for them. Can HAL set us up with guardianship papers for them?"
"If I may, Kestrel?" HAL said, his camera lens avatar returning to the screen.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Thank you. Bob, do I correctly infer that the minors are Japanese?"
"Yes and no. They're all from an anime, yes. Three early-teen girls with Japanese names who are native to Japan in their home timeline, and one pre-teen boy with a Western name who is not."
"Well, where the three girls are concerned, it's not strictly necessary to do anything formal. This could be handled simply by generating letters ostensibly from each set of parents, asking you as 'family friends' to take responsibility for their children during their time 'studying abroad'." HAL paused minutely, before continuing, "A step beyond this would be to insert records of the deaths of said fictional parents into various databases, along with probated wills appointing the two of you their legal guardians, but I do not believe it is necessary to go to such lengths. Similarly, I think it would be unnecessary at this time for us to establish either Residential Custody or Kinship Legal Guardianship through the New Jersey state court system."
"And if it turns out we do need something like that?" I asked.
"If at some point there is undesired official interest in one or more of the children," HAL replied, "then I can quickly create the necessary records, backstopping them far more thoroughly than anyone is likely to pursue. It would take me no more than a few minutes."
"Fair enough. And for Ascot?"
"I would presume that is the pre-teen boy? Depending on the records and history created for him by the Celestials, we could do a similar 'informal' request, or if necessary set up a Kinship Legal Guardianship."
"What's that?" Peggy asked.
"A kinship legal guardian is what I believe you meant by simply a 'guardian'. It is a relative or family friend appointed by a New Jersey court to raise a child when its parents are unable to do so. We would have to establish a far more extensive history including building a paper trail for his fictional parents, a valid reason for the transfer of guardianship, providing evidence of the year of pre-existing care that is required before the guardianship can be granted, and of course all the court records surrounding the matter."
"Sounds messy," I said.
"It is a rather complex web of interconnecting and mutually supporting documentation," HAL admitted. "I do believe I would quite enjoy the challenge of constructing it."
I chuckled as I shared a glance with Peg. "Tell you what, HAL. Far be it from us to keep you from enjoying yourself. Let's start with the simple 'watch over my kid' letter for Ascot, but in the background go ahead and enjoy building your web. That way if we turn out to need it, you'll have it ready to go."
"That is acceptable. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Peggy."
"No," I said, "Thank you, HAL."
"Yeah," Peggy added. "Thanks."
"Just one more thing," Chihiro said after we'd ended the video conference and she and the others were preparing to go. "When you called us earlier we were in the middle of discussing what we wanted to do with ourselves now that we were here in this world,."
Keiichi nodded. "And we decided we wanted to restart Whirlwind. But to do that..."
"...we're going to need a garage to work out of," Chihiro continued, "and seed money to buy tools and equipment to replace what we left behind in... in our old world."
Peg and I exchanged looks. "Funtom?" she asked, and I nodded.
Turning back to our new tenants, I said, "No guarantees, but Funtom might be willing to spot you some startup cash — although I know it won't be a gift, you'll have to pay them back, or maybe give them a piece of the company."
Chihiro nodded. "Yeah, I kind of expected that."
"Another thing," I added, one forefinger raised. "I'll be willing to act as a go-between at the start — in fact, I'm pretty sure that's one of my responsibilities as a manager — but before I make that first phone call, I think you'd best have a proper business plan drawn up. Funtom's not going to just throw money at you and hope for the best. They're going to want to know that they're investing in a venture that's going to turn a profit."
"I can do that," she said, then flashed us a quick grin. "Did it once already when I started up the old Whirlwind."
"Okay, good," I said. "Now, as far as a garage, well... we definitely can help you there."
"You can?" Megumi asked.
Ten minutes later we were at the end of the parking lot between buildings 8 and 10, the second lot on the west side of Annette. Unlike the other four lots... well, five, if you count the short lot next to buildings 13 and 15... anyway, unlike the other lots, this one had a building at the end.
It was, as you might have already anticipated if you've been paying attention, a garage.
More correctly, it was eight one-car garages with separate doors under a single roof, the whole built of cinder blocks painted white. As we understood it, the pre-Funtom management of Douglass Gardens rented them out for an extra charge above and beyond the basic rent to tenants who thought their cars were too special or delicate to be left out in the weather with those belonging to the hoi polloi. And according to some of the paperwork left behind for us after the sale, it was quite the premium.
Somehow that made what Peg and I had in mind all the sweeter. I'd quickly explained my brainstorm to her out of our new tenants' earshot and she had agreed it was a good idea. (For which I was glad; I hadn't looked forward to trying to convince her if she hadn't.)
I walked down the length of the building, unlocking the doors with the keys on the special "garage" ring, and lifted each one to reveal the bays within. "So here's the deal," I said as I did. "No one in the complex has their own car yet."
"And if they did, well, we've got a lot of parking spaces," Peggy said.
"Right," I said, lifting another door. "At the moment we only have the two vans for the complex, and they live next to the community center. So this entire building is unused and is likely to stay that way for quite a while... unless you think you can run your new Whirlwind out of it."
"You're serious?" Keiichi blurted as the four of them started chattering among themselves.
"As Gary Oldman,"3 I replied with a grin, and Peggy whacked me on the upper arm.
It was obvious that my Harry Potter joke had gone completely over his head, but he grokked what I'd meant. The four of them started crawling through the building, testing light switches, rattling doors, picking through the odd box left behind by a former tenant... As they did, I put the cherry on top.
"If you think you can use it," I said, "we'll let you have it rent free for six months. That'll cut down substantially on your start-up costs. At the end of that six months, assuming the company is at least breaking even, we can negotiate a proper rent."
Chihiro stopped what she was doing and came back out to face us. "Rent-free? Really?" She narrowed her eyes. "Why would you do that?"
"It's what we're here for," Peggy said, rolling her eyes.
I tilted my head at my wife. "What she said. We're not just here to give you a room and fix dripping faucets. We're here to help you find a place in the world and make a good life for yourselves for as long as you need it."
"It doesn't cost us anything to let you use a building no one would be using anyway," Peggy added. "It helps you, so why not?"
Chihiro nodded slowly, a thoughtful look on her face, before turning back to the garage and gathering up the other three. Then they huddled and talked. Peg and I moved away from them to give them some privacy.
"You think they'll go for it?" I asked.
Peg shrugged. "They'd be stupid not to."
The huddle broke and the four of them came over to us. "Well?" I asked.
"It's not perfect," Chihiro started. Keiichi rolled his eyes. "We're going to need to add work benches, and tool cabinets, maybe put in doors between the bays, and we'll want to turn one of the units into a proper office and another into a storeroom..."
Keiichi leaned forward with a grin. "We'll take it."
She sighed, but smiled. "Yes, we'll take it."
"Excellent," I said. "We can work out the details tomorrow, but for now, you have a garage." I tossed the keyring to her and she caught it clumsily. Chihiro looked down at it, then back up at us, and smiled even more broadly.
"Thank you," she said, before she and the rest went back to checking out their new workplace.
"You're welcome," I murmured even though she was already out of earshot.
"That was a very kind thing for you to do," a familiar female voice said from behind us. I gave a little yelp of surprise as Peg and I spun around to find Belldandy standing there, a black cat I hadn't seen in a week or so calmly and comfortably resting in her arms.
"Belldandy, hi!" Peg said brightly while I got my heartbeat under control.
"Bell! You startled me," I finally said.
"I'm sorry." She petted the cat, who was looking at me with what I swore was a smirk on its muzzle.
I nodded toward the feline. "Oh, is that your cat?" Peg, I noticed, had already stepped several feet away, as always mindful of her allergies.
"No," she replied. "He's his own cat." Somehow I expected that. The cat seemed even more smug than a moment ago, too. The hell that's not Toltiir. "As I said, that was very kind of you."
"It was the right thing to do," Peggy said, shrugging.
"What she said," I said.
"Regardless, thank you." She made a short bow, abbreviated in deference to the cat in her arms, which despite the change in its perch remained unconcerned and comfortably in place. "And now I must go again; honestly, I shouldn't have spared even this short visit, but I had an opportunity to give Mr. Thompson and HAL the photograph they needed, so I was in Midgard already."
I held up a hand. "Go, Bell, we know how important your work is. We'll take care of them, don't you worry."
Belldandy smiled. "Once more, thank you," she said, then dropped something shiny at her feet. As she said "Farewell," I realized it had to be a pocket mirror; it began glowing with the distinctive white light of Belldandy's transport medium. She stepped into and disappeared, dropping down into it as though a hole had opened up beneath her feet.
With that smirking cat still in her arms.
After that we had a late lunch, and then... the next thing on our agenda for the day. Three days earlier we promised Ascot we'd let him check on his "friends". I had thought the playground area at the very end of the complex, almost the farthest point from Hamilton Street, might serve. So before we went back home for lunch, we diverted slightly to check it out.
As I thought I'd remembered, it was well-surrounded with trees or buildings on three sides and a jog in Annette Court took it out of direct line-of-sight from Hamilton Street. And, probably most importantly, there looked to be enough room for Ascot to summon one of his kaijuu-lite creatures at a time.
At least, if the summoning or the creature didn't do any damage to the landscape. If at all possible, I'd rather avoid having the street, the playground or one of the service buildings wiped out. The problem there was that I had a vague recollection that more than a few of his summonings were rather energetically pyrotechnic. So while Peg made sandwiches for us, I located our box set of Magic Knight Rayearth and did a quick Google lookup for episodes.
Ascot first appeared in episode 6, where he summoned a mini-Mothra he called Atalante. So I cued it up, and Peg and I sat down in the living room with our lunches on the coffee table to watch.
Other than its size and mass, Atalante's summoning was rather prosaic: a glowing circle of power formed in midair, through which it appeared. I would have said there was nothing about it to draw any unwanted attention — except it appeared in mid-air. Whatever was underneath it needed to be able to withstand its multi-ton bulk dropping down on it. Which would no doubt shake nearby buildings — including the nearby houses outside the complex.
Not to mention that it made typical kaijuu noises at typical kaijuu volumes.
"That's... going to be noticed," Peggy said, reaching the same conclusion I was.
"Yeah." I quit the episode and advanced to the next.
In episode 7, Ascot summoned Pajero, a manta ray-like creature that dug its way up from under the sand of a desert. Watching its arrival, I was already shaking my head — between its size (much bigger than Atalante) and the damage it would cause just showing up there was no way we could allow that in the complex. "We're going to need to find an abandoned quarry or something," I said around my sandwich.
"Or something, yeah."
Episode 8 was next. Ah, there's what I was remembering. Big Seal of Solomon, pillar of fire, very loud explosion, very loud giant wolf-like creature. Yeah, no. No way. Episode 9's giant snail showed up with a blast in an equally noticeable column of light. And Capella from episode 10 needed to be summoned in a largish body of water — which we very much did not have handy — with its own column of light, and was just as loud and growly as the others.
Having finished off our lunches we stopped there. There were still several more episodes with summonings but according to the list from Wikipedia those were the big ones. Plus, I'd seen enough.
So had Peg. "We can't use the playground," she said, shaking her head.
"No question," I said as I ejected the disk and put it back in its case, then slid the case back into the box. "Last thing we need is the Franklin cops coming by to investigate an explosion and a pillar of light."
She snorted. "And giant monster noises."
"Yeah, that too." I returned the box set to its place on the DVD shelf. "Let's think about this logically. We need someplace that's accessible to the public but still not overrun by people, that's remote enough that his bigger summonings won't be noticed, wild enough that any damage they do will be unnoticed or ignored as natural, and close enough to be convenient."
Peggy shook her head. "Not asking for much, are you?"
"Only the world, love, only the world."
We didn't want to disappoint Ascot, but fortunately, our displacees had come from somewhere in between the first and second seasons of Magic Knight Rayearth — before Ascot grew a couple feet in height, but after he stopped being a bad-tempered brat.
Whatever relief we felt at not having to face a monster-enhanced tantrum (and the subsequent rebuilding costs), though, was more than wiped out by Ascot's heartbroken expression. "I can't see my friends?" he asked softly. Behind him, Hikaru and Fuu looked almost as downcast, and Umi stepped forward to lay a hand on his shoulder.
Peggy dropped to her knees and swept Ascot up in a hug. Out of the voluminous robes and oversized hat he'd worn in Cephiro, he seemed even tinier that he had when he'd arrived. "Not yet. We don't have the room here to do it safely. And we don't want anyone to call the police because they got scared."
I knelt down, too, putting one arm around Peg and laying my other hand on Ascot's back. "We're looking for someplace nearby where you can call your friends. We promise we'll find somewhere for you. That's what we're here for."
"And we will," Peggy added vehemently as Ascot wrapped his arms around her. "We'll find a place."
"So..." Peg asked when we were back in our apartment. "Any ideas yet?"
I pulled out my phone and dropped into the leather armchair. "A couple. I need to do a little research before I can say for sure."
Rutgers University
College Avenue Campus
New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
It was shortly after lunch on Tuesday that Yui and Ritsu noticed the small group of confused people clustered around a bench on the Rutgers College Avenue Campus. The two had just left Brower Commons Dining Hall and were heading down the stairs to the left and past Stonier Hall, toward the center of the campus, when they spotted the clearly distressed group to the right of the Computing Center entrance.
"Ricchan?" Yui murmured.
"Yeah, I see them. They're not students," Ritsu replied.
"And they're too upset to be tourists or visitors, I think," Yui said.
Ritsu nodded. The group was definitely out of the ordinary for the Rutgers campus: a girl in her tweens and a slightly younger boy, four adults — a man and a woman seated on the black metal bench with the boy between them, and two women dressed like office ladies who almost seemed to be standing guard to either side of them — and a teenaged girl with long magenta hair that hung down to below her waist. Their clothing, now that Ritsu thought about it, looked a bit out-of-date and perhaps a bit too heavy for a day that was already creeping above 80° Fahrenheit, even if it was mostly cloudy.
The two "guards" looked ready to assault anyone who got too close, only pausing in their vigilance to glare and not-quite-snarl at the teenage girl, who was the only one of the group who didn't seem worried. The tweenage girl also seemed annoyed at the teen as well. Definitely not a group of lifelong friends.
As they reached the bottom of the staircase, Yui said, "I think I know who they are," and suddenly broke into a trot to cross the small plaza to the group. Ritsu shook her head, smiled and followed at a slower pace. The "guard" with long purple hair twitched, her hand reaching for her waist before she scowled and stepped forward.
"Excuse me," Yui said, bowing carefully so as not to dislodge the backpack in which she held the books for her afternoon classes. "You look like you're lost. Maybe we can help?" Everyone else in the group looked up at her in surprise.
"I doubt it, kid," growled the purple-haired "guard", stepping forward to stand in front of Yui.
"Arisa, behave yourself," chided the older woman on the bench, and the office lady scowled and stepped back. "But I believe Arisa is correct — I doubt there's anything you can do to help us."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Ritsu said lightly as she reached Yui's side. "I've seen those expressions on a lot of faces over the past few days, including my own."
"What would you know about it?" demanded the other "guard".
"Well," Yui said, sharing a glance with Ritsu, "have you just found yourself someplace strange without any idea how you got here, or why you're speaking English?"
The couple on the bench exchanged a look before the man cautiously said, "Yes?", stretching the word out. He had a massive shock of hair hiding his eyes, and a lit cigarette hung from the side of his mouth. "How did you know?"
Yui gave them her totally unconscious but utterly effective "we're best friends, you just don't know it yet" smile. "Because it happened to us last week..." She turned to Ritsu. "Last week?"
Ritsu nodded. "Last week."
Yui nodded back and turned back to the group. "Last week. You're on a version of Earth called 'Refuge', you're in the United States, it's 2016..." this got a collective in-drawing of breath from the adults, "...and there are people here to help folks like us."
Ritsu nudged Yui with her shoulder as she dug her cellphone from a pocket. "I'll call Bob. You go do that thing you always do with strangers." She grinned and shook her head. "Guess we're cutting class this afternoon."
"We'll just copy Akira and Ayame's notes," Yui said absently, then asked, "What thing I always do with strangers?"
It was about 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon when I pulled one of the residence vans to a halt at the curb of College Avenue next to Brower Commons. I put it in park and turned on the four-ways just in time for Ritsu and Yui to show up leading a gaggle of people who (other than the two children) bore the increasingly-familiar shell-shocked expression of the newly-displaced. For a moment I wondered who they were and what show or movie they were from — and then I spotted the teen-aged girl with waist-length magenta hair.
Oh boy.
If she was who I thought she was, Funtom needed to call its insurance company yesterday.
Ritsu yanked open the passenger-side front door and leaned in. "Hey Bob, we got some new customers for you and Peggy." Behind me I could hear the side door sliding open.
"Yes, thank you so much, Ritsu." I twisted in my seat to look back at my new passengers. "Hi, Yui. So who are our new friends? Everyone, just climb on in and take a seat."
Yui was beaming as she helped them in one by one. "Well, this is Akiko Natsume-san, and Kyusaku Natsume-san, and Ryunosuke-chan," she said as she helped an elegant-looking woman in her thirties, a somewhat disheveled-looking man around the same age, and a young boy into the van. "And Arisa-san and Kyouko-san" — two more women, these in their twenties and looking like the world's angriest office ladies — "and Eimi-chan" — a brown-haired, red-eyed girl who looked to be about twelve, and at the sight of whom I had to suppress a certain amount of trepidation, because I recognized her... and everyone else who'd gotten in. "And this," Yui concluded proudly as she helped the teenaged girl in, "is Atsu-nyan!"
"Hiiiii!" said Atsu-nyan — the magenta-haired teen who could only be Atsuko "Nuku Nuku" Natsume — in a perfect copy of Megumi Hayashibara's voice.
"Hi, everyone," I said as Yui and Ritsu climbed in and closed the doors behind them. "I'm Bob Schroeck. My wife Peggy and I are the managers of Douglass Gardens Apartments. I understand that Ritsu and Yui gave you a quick explanation of what's happened to you?"
Akiko and Kyusaku traded glances over Ryunosuke's head. "Yes, but it's frankly difficult to believe," Akiko said.
I nodded as I turned back to the steering wheel. "Yeah, everyone says that at first, and usually for a few days afterwards. We'll have proof for you when we get back to the apartments. Now, is everyone belted in?"
A chorus of yesses in tones ranging from grudging to excited answered me. "Okay, then," I said, turned off the four-ways and put the van in gear. The door locks automatically engaged, briefly alarming some of them but when nothing dangerous happened they calmed down. I had to wait for a campus bus to pass by first, and then I pulled into traffic. "Now," I said as I accelerated, "Douglass Gardens is part of a network of residences set up to house and support persons like you who have been ejected from their home timelines..."
Well, long story short — after so many iterations do you really need me to go over the whole process in detail again? — we got the Natsumes and hangers-on settled in. Along the way we had to show them their show, of course. A few questions confirmed that they came from the early-90s All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku OVA series — their native year was 1992 — which was a slight problem at first because we didn't own a copy of it. Fortunately it turned out to be on Crunchyroll.
They hadn't arrived with luggage, so after that we had to make a quick run to Brunswick Square Mall and the ShopRite on Route 18 to get them all set up with enough clothes and supplies to carry them through the next few days. When we got back, that Celestial trainee (we still didn't know her name) showed up with their paperwork. Then it was time for GrubHub and Midori and yet another welcome dinner which was even more crowded than the last. We ended up suspending the "no food in the studios" rule just to get a bit more eating space without spreading everyone across two floors.
Handling the introductions was a bit more complex a task as well. The sheer number of residents we now had made it a bit harder to get everyone familiar with everyone else, but we got a good start on it, and with luck the rest should handle itself over next few days or weeks as people ran into each other. I'll note that Ryunosuke and Ascot hit it off almost immediately, and I foresaw the pair of them becoming holy terrors around the complex in short order.
And then there was the moment when Yui, with a very obvious twinkle of mischief in her eye, dragged Azusa over to Nuku Nuku and solemnly proclaimed, "Azu-nyan, meet Atsu-nyan. Atsu-nyan, meet Azu-nyan."
Nuku Nuku tilted her head as a very human expression of confusion flickered quickly across her face. "Are you a cat girl, too?"
Azusa sighed. "Yui-sempai seems to think so." Yui giggled.
That's all I managed to overhear before the responsibilities of being co-host of the dinner party dragged me elsewhere, but I noticed that while Yui, ever the social butterfly, had moved on to other targets, Azusa and Nuku Nuku were still talking fifteen or twenty minutes later, and had started to accumulate some of the other members of Wakaba Girls. Not long after that Peg and I spotted the lot of them heading toward the studio and practice rooms. It looked like our cat girl was going to get her own private concert.
I didn't have much time to think about that, because just about then I heard an angry female voice just barely audible above the walla of conversations. I looked around; the hallway to the practice rooms and the recording studio was closed off, so it wasn't coming from there. I craned my neck, looking for the source of the voice which, while it wasn't exactly comprehensible over the party noise, was definitely getting louder.
"There," Peg said and subtly pointed. Ah, yeah. Over by the archway that led to the foyer/coatroom that kept the main door of the community center from opening directly upon its front room, Arisa Sono (now in jeans and T-shirt) was growling something I still couldn't make out at Lafarga while poking him aggressively in the chest with her forefinger. Given that he was a good foot and some taller than her, and proportionally wider and heavier (even out of his armor), the effect was almost comic. He was looking down at her with the kind of half-puzzled, half-amused expression you might see on a wolf being assaulted by a soft fluffy bunny, which only seemed to fuel her fury. Her peach-haired partner Kyouko had an arm around her, trying to pull her away from the blond swordsman, but didn't seem to be having much luck.
"Well, shit," I murmured to her. "C'mon, let's break that up before it turns into a real fight."
"Yeah," Peg said as we started making our way though the crowd between us and them. "He could probably put her through a wall if she actually annoys him enough."
A moment later I grabbed her wrist and pulled her poking hand away from Lafarga's chest. "That's enough, Ms. Sono."
She spun on me and snarled, "Who the hell are you to tell me what's enough?"
"I am your apartment manager," I said calmly but firmly. Over her shoulder I shot Lafarga an apologetic look. He just smiled and walked off while on the other side of her from me, Peggy and Kyouko were doing their best to hold Arisa in place in case she decided to go chasing after him. "I am the person who is making sure you have a roof over your head and food to eat. I strongly suggest you control your temper."
This stopped her cold for a moment before she continued glowering at me. "He..."
"I don't care," I interrupted her. I gestured with my head to the foyer. "Let's continue this somewhere more private."
"Encouraged" by her partner and my wife, Arisa reluctantly followed me there. That I hadn't yet let go of her wrist probably had something to do with it as well. I did release it once we were out of sight of the rest of the dinner party, though. As she rubbed it with an exaggerated theatricality, I picked up where I left off. "Ms. Sono, like I just said, you need to control your temper." She tried to object, but I didn't let her get a word in. "This is not your home world, where you could apparently commit violent assault on a daily basis with no repercussions beyond a slap on the wrist from Mishima. This is a world with much stricter laws, where your former employer is a fictional character with no influence, where you cannot indulge in recreational violence without risking arrest or imprisonment.
"Further!" I continued, stomping on her next attempt to say something, "this apartment complex houses a large number of children and young adults. Their safety and well-being comes before anything else, least of all your temper. I don't pretend to know what led up to the moment we just interrupted, but I'm pretty sure that nothing justified the level of anger you were demonstrating. If you can't control yourself, we're under no obligation to continue offering you a place to live."
"You've got no right to threaten me like that!" she growled.
"Arisa!" her partner said in a pleading tone.
"I have every right." I tried to stare her down. "You are living here at our sufferance. If my wife and I decide that we do not want you in our residence, out you go. You are not entitled to a place here, and you are not entitled to bully or attack the other residents. If you cannot act like an adult, and if you place any of our other residents at risk because of your behavior, You. Will. Be. Evicted." I said the last slowly and firmly, emphasizing each separate word.
"And no other residence has to take you in," Peggy said, somewhat more calmly than me.
"Yeah," I said. "If no other residence will accept you, you will be on the street."
She shook herself free from Peg and Kyouko. "Lady Akiko won't allow that!"
"Lady Akiko is as much a penniless refugee dependent on our charity as you are." I leaned in closer to her. "She has no influence or power with which to save you from yourself except perhaps begging. And do you seriously think she will debase herself for you?" I straightened back up. "I think maybe you should call it a night. Ms. Ariyoshi?" I spared a glance for her partner. "Could you please see that Ms. Sono gets back to your apartment?"
Kyouko chewed her lip for a moment before nodding once, briskly. "C'mon, Arisa," she said, taking her partner's arm, "let's go." It took a little tugging but Arisa started moving — towards the exit since Peg and I were blocking the way back into the community center.
"You haven't heard the last of this!" Arisa declared angrily as Kyouko pulled her through the door.
"No, I suppose I haven't," I said just before the door shut with an entirely anticlimactic "click" of the latch. I let out a long breath.
"You okay?" Peg asked as she stepped forward and took my hand.
I turned to look at her. "I'm about to fall over from nerves," I admitted, finally giving into the shakes I'd been suppressing up to then. "I've never been good at trying to intimidate anyone. And I was terrified that she was going to take a swing at me and I wouldn't be able to block or dodge in time." I grimaced. "I'm 54 and I never was good in a fight."
"If she hit you, she'd've been out on her ass before you got back up," Peg said with a smile.
I smiled back. "I'm glad you have my back. But it still would've hurt like hell." I turned back to look at the door outside. "She's going to be trouble, I know it."
The next morning we posted a new rule for the apartment complex on the Douglass Gardens area on displacees.yggdrasil and as a voicemail sent to every apartment's mailbox: No firearms were permitted in Douglass Gardens, even if they were properly licensed and secured. If a resident was found with a firearm in their apartment or possession, they would be subject to immediate eviction. And anyone found with illegal firearms — unregistered, unlicensed, or otherwise not permitted for civilians — would be immediately turned over to the cops.
Yes, of course it was because of Arisa. The crazy bitch had a demonstrated history in every version of Nuku Nuku of taking out her frustrations with high-caliber weaponry. We did not trust that she wouldn't flip out and start shooting up the place if we allowed her to own so much as a BB gun. And to be honest, we didn't entirely trust that she wouldn't just say "fuck it" and shoot up the place anyway.
I sent an email to this effect to Sebastian, who replied minutes later that should worse come to worse, Funtom had a facility in Wales where she could be placed safely.
I responded with a suggestion he reserve a room for her.
He didn't reply.
Douglass Gardens Apartments
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Helen Imre pulled her Hyundai Sonata into the space behind the managers' office/apartment next to the other Sonata parked there and looked curiously at the back door with its green awning. It was, she thought, all very strange. Bob had been unemployed and looking for a new programming job; Peggy had been effectively retired since several years earlier when her employer had moved their main office out of the state and she'd declined to move with it. For them both to suddenly and without warning take jobs as apartment managers — and move out of their home of more than fifteen years to do so — was utterly unexpected.
That it had caused her some personal inconvenience was relatively minor. While she worked in the local library across Demott Lane from the Banzai Institute, she lived in a row house with her husband Attila in Allentown, Pennsylvania, an hour and a half away. To save on gas and other expenses, she crashed in Bob and Peggy's guest room two nights a week, after spending an evening eating dinner and socializing with them. Except she hadn't since the beginning of the month, between the move, the settling in, and apparently a whole raft of new renters showing up and needing help.
But finally, for the first time in two weeks, she could go back to the schedule they had all been very happy with. Work was over, she was here, and they had a backlog of episodes for the Asian dramas she and Peggy had been watching at the end of August.
A minute later she was standing at the back door to their apartment, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, and rang the bell. It swung open to reveal Bob. "Oh, hey, Helen. It's after five already? Wow," he added, looking back over his shoulder. "We kinda lost track of time." From behind him the sound of Peggy and two other women talking drifted out through the door. "It's been that kind of day."
"And I'm just delighted to see you, too," Helen said with mild sarcasm lacing her voice. "Can I come in?"
"Um," he glanced back over his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess." He stepped aside and motioned her in.
"Well, thank you," she replied. "I wasn't looking forward to standing any longer on your steps in this heat."
He closed the door behind her as she took a look around. She was in a dining room, on the far side of which from her was a kitchen. And to her left was a large living room, part of which had been sectioned off into an obvious "office" space, with a desk, a wall-mounted box in which hung sets of keys and a couple of file cabinets. The rest of the living room was... well, a living room. Peggy and two women were sitting there. All three had stopped talking when Helen came in.
"Oh, hi, Helen!" Peggy said, then glanced up at the clock over the couch on which the two other women sat. "Wow, it's almost 5:30!"
"Yes," Helen said, again letting just a touch of sarcasm enter her voice, "It is."
The two strange women glanced at each other, then stood. The profoundly beautiful one with a massive cascade of ash-blonde hair to her ankles (Helen's eyebrows rose at the sight), said, "You have a guest, and we're about finished here. We should go." She was dressed in a style Helen could only call "domestic", in slacks, a cardigan and loafers — in distinct contrast to the other woman, who looked like she was cosplaying as a hippie right out of the Sixties, with her dark-lensed granny glasses, overlarge smock top and harem pants in jewel green, and Birkenstocks. All she needed was a fringed leather vest and a headband to hold back her own voluminous golden blonde hair.
"It is the first time you've seen her since taking the job, after all," Hippie-Chick added. "Don't let us steal any more of your evening from you."
"Um, Helen," Bob said, stepping into the living room behind her, "I'd like you to meet two of our new bosses..."
The hippie waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not one of your bosses — I'm more... boss-adjacent."
He snorted. "If you say so. Helen, this is Novalis, the Archangel of Flowers..." The hippie chick gave a little wave. "...and Belldandy Wishbringer, Norn of the Present." The walking tower of hair bowed slightly in a manner Helen realized was Japanese.
She looked back and forth between them before turning back to Bob. "Bullshit."
"Oh, dear," the Belldandy cosplayer said with what sounded like genuine distress in her voice, then turned to the hippie. "Shall I prove who we are, or would you care to?"
"Oh, let me." The hippie tilted her head, looked over her granny glasses and grinned at Helen. Her eyes were a startling green the exact same shade as her ensemble. "Why should you have all the fun?"
"Belldandy" giggled and gestured toward Helen. "By all means, then."
An eternal moment later, Helen stood, silent, staring at the two women. Bob started reaching for her when she suddenly smiled broadly. "Oh, cool! And thank Gods! I always hoped the world was more interesting than it seemed!"
Bob blinked and turned to Peggy. "Okay, that's not the usual reaction..."
Peggy rolled her eyes. "It's Helen."
Belldandy beamed, and Novalis laughed. "That it is, dear," Belldandy confirmed.
"So," Bob turned back to Helen, "Belldandy's not just one of our bosses, she's also one of our tenants — the one who gets the best service of course." He grinned at the whole room. "She and her husband Keiichi — yes, that Keiichi — have an apartment in the next building over."
"Belldandy and Keiichi..." Helen repeated, a look of interest on her face.
"Yup. And Novalis comes around to make sure our house plants don't die."
"You," Novalis said while visibly suppressing a smile, "are not as funny as you think you are."
"Anyway," Belldandy declared firmly, "We must go. We will keep an eye on the situation with Ms. Sono, and take such action as needed should it be necessary."
"Thank you, Bell," Peggy said, followed closely by Bob. "We've been worrying about her."
Helen thought fast to seize an opportunity. "Before you go, you wouldn't happen to have need of a librarian or archivist, would you? I have nearly thirty years experience..."
Belldandy and Novalis traded looks. "I personally do not," Belldandy replied.
"Nor I," Novalis added. "But... Bob, could you give her a card for Funtom Property Management? I don't know for sure, but I would imagine they must have a local office where you could inquire."
Helen turned to Bob. "Funtom Property Management?"
"The company Peg and I officially work for. But it's run by the Celestials."
Novalis' brow creased the tiniest bit. "By a demon, to be precise."
"A demon?" Helen looked at Bob.
"I'll explain later," he said. She nodded.
Helen then watched as two of her oldest friends traded goodbyes and hugs with a goddess and an archangel. Belldandy stepped over to the full-length mirror that was a new fixture in the Schroecks' living room and, with one last "Good-bye!", disappeared through it, exactly like she did in Ah! My Goddess.
Novalis turned to Bob and Peggy and said, "Do let Yui and Ui know that I enjoyed meeting both of them, please."
"We will," Peggy replied with a smile. "They certainly enjoyed meeting you."
Novalis smiled broadly. "I don't think anyone has ever called me 'Leese-sama'.4 I believe I like it. Farewell!" She waved grandiloquently, and turned into a pillar of brilliant light that exited through the ceiling of the living room.
As Helen blinked purple afterimages out of her eyes, Bob plopped into the leather armchair facing hers. "So I'm guessing you're wondering just what the hell is going on here." Peggy stretched out on the sofa, leaning on the arm closest to Helen.
She shook her head clear, then glared at Bob. "Only a lot."
"It's kind of a long story," Peggy said apologetically.
"I am staying overnight, you know," Helen pointed out, a bit more sharply than she intended.
"Well, in that case," Bob replied, and began to explain.
In Nomine and the characters thereof are copyright © 1997 by Derek Pearcy, Steve Jackson, and Steve Jackson Games. In Nomine is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games. All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.
- RMS: It's ChatHAL! Or maybe Unstable Diffusion?
- RMS: New Jersey has a Motor Vehicle Commission, instead of a Division (or Department) of Motor Vehicles, like many other states.
- RMS: Gary Oldman played Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films.
- RMS: "Novalis" is pronounced "nova-LEESE".
|
|
|
| A far future teaser... |
|
Posted by: Bob Schroeck - 10-23-2024, 03:01 PM - Forum: Drunkard's Walk VIII: Harry Potter and the Man from Otherearth
- Replies (10)
|
|
Even though most of my output currently is directed toward My Apartment Manager Is Not an Isekai Character, I am still doing work here and there on the in-progress DW projects. Just to reward you for your patience and forbearance, here's a little something that I've had staged in my dev files for quite a while now. It is actually the (incomplete) third of DW8's four epilogues, and while it dangles tantalizing hints of what happened during the course of the story, it doesn't really have very much in the way of spoilers. I'm figuring it should be just enough to re-invigorate the flagging, and whet the appetites of those still waiting eagerly for more...
Epilogue III
Life's like a movie,
Write your own ending,
Keep believing,
Keep pretending.
-- "The Muppet Movie"
June 18, 2015
Nineteen years later...
Albus Dumbledore slid deeper into the shadows cloaking the end
of the booth in which he sat and stared into the amber depths of
the glass of firewhiskey before him. It wasn't Ogden's Finest --
even if his budget had allowed for it, he wouldn't waste Ogden's
on a drink on this of all days.
He picked up the glass and held it before him. "To Douglas
Sangnoir and Harry Potter," he muttered the annual toast too
softly to be heard by anyone else in the Leaky Cauldron. "Merlin
damn them both." He took a swig and toughed out the mouthful of
rotgut as steam shot from his ears.
In a year it would be an even two decades since the pair had
utterly and completely undermined his plans for the future of
Wizarding Britain by defeating Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
And not just defeating them, but doing so in a dramatic and
public manner using magics beyond those known to any other
witch or wizard of the time.
*And without me there to guide it all.* That was the worst part.
The mystic power of the DA, collectively and individually, was
undeniable, and when they attributed it all to Douglas, well,
that sealed the fate of Albus Dumbledore. Harry's star rose
while Albus' began its slow fall to ignominy.
At least Douglas, however much they had disagreed on methods and
means, had been above it all, even refusing an Order of Merlin.
"The kids did everything -- I was just there as backup." Not
that anyone believed his denials. The stories had spread of him
striding unaffected through a veritable storm of Killing Curses
to strike Voldemort down with a punch, then falling to a point-
blank curse from Tom himself just to *get up again* -- well, the
carefully-crafted folklore around young Harry had faded away in
the face of the *true* stories about Douglas Sangnoir, the now-
legendary Man-Who-Would-Not-Die.
And Douglas' subsequent "mysterious disappearance" upon his
departure from this timeline had only served to deepen his mythic
status, just as Harry's childhood hidden in the Muggle world had
deepened his. What had a mere man like Albus Dumbledore to offer
Wizarding Britain when it had two living gods in its recent
history to inspire it?
At the thought of gods, Albus scowled and took another swig of
his firewhiskey. Of all the things he hated Douglas Sangnoir
for, calling the Norns to Hogwarts was one of the greatest --
because afterward they had *never left*. For nineteen years now,
they had roamed the halls and classrooms with impunity, only ever
glimpsed by the staff at a distance, but *always* available to
the students. Albus doubted there was any student who had
attended Hogwarts in the last two decades who hadn't met one of
the gods who seemed to have taken it upon themselves to keep a
close and personal eye on *his* school. And although he
suspected their presence had as much to do with the continued
appearance of magical abominations among the children as Doug's
teachings had, he knew that it was also a direct message to him
-- that they were *always* watching and judging him.
Damn them.
A commotion at the Muggle-side door of the Cauldron dragged his
attention away from his firewhiskey, and his scowl deepened. It
was one of the abominations, Lavender Brown, in robes of the
brown and saffron which had been her signature colors since her
fifth year. With her were several of her pack, impeccably
dressed, as always, in the height of fashion. And... Albus
squinted and peered. Four young women accompanied her, wearing
outfits that were neither recognizably Muggle nor Wizarding...
and one looked to be almost a twin to Brown, right down to
wearing the same colors.
Was one of her hands *gold*? How odd.
From Brown's gestures and what little he could overhear at this
distance, it was clear they were strangers to the Cauldron and
Diagon Alley, and she was playing tour guide.
Albus shook his head and ignored them. Brown practically ruled
British werewolves these days, and under her influence they had
prospered even as "unfortunate incidents" dwindled away. It was
perhaps emblematic of his fall and the rise of the D.A.'s power
in Britain that when Brown had turned her eyes toward improving
the lot of her followers, abundant supplies of wolfsbane potion
had suddenly appeared, and new werewolf legislation more liberal
and comprehensive than any he had ever hoped to see had sailed
through the Wizengamot with appalling ease.
Her casual dismissal of his offer to advise her on that
legislation only underlined the degree to which his influence
had declined. Albus took another swig and reflected on how he'd
become an artifact of the "Bad Old Days", an unwanted fossil.
Even most of the Weasleys, who had always been his staunchest
supporters, now thought of him as an out-of-touch antique,
although they were too polite to say so to his face.
And the "why" of that all came back to Douglas -- Douglas and his
philosophy of overwhelming victory on the battlefield and off.
Under his tutelage the members of the Defense Association had
accepted and embraced his maxim, "Never leave an enemy behind to
attack you again". Far too many had seen the aftermath of
Voldemort's first campaign, erroneously concluded that nothing
had changed and sought to strike out at those who had followed
Tom even after they had been given a chance at redemption -- a
chance that those like young Severus had eagerly grasped.
Albus scowled into his firewhiskey. If there was anything he
hated Douglas for most, it was the murder of Severus Snape. (He
barely wrestled down the automatic urge to add "the Betrayer and
Oathbreaker" to the name, even in his private thoughts.) With
his death Albus had lost the greatest demonstration that his
approach had been the only correct way, that forgiveness could
trump hate. Instead, the Ministry and Wizarding society as a
whole now returned violence with violence, evil with evil,
depriving those who had foolishly embraced the Dark of the chance
to repent and turn back to the Light. Instead the massacre of
Tom and his followers had become a *model* for the Ministry's
future dealings with those who would overthrow it.
It didn't matter that Britain had enjoyed nearly twenty years of
unheard-of peace and prosperity because of it, that the economy
and population were both booming, and that two would-be Dark
Lords (poor, deluded Draco, Albus briefly mourned) and their
followers had been cut down almost as soon as they'd risen. The
stain on the nation's very soul would prove even more corrupting
than Voldemort's influence ever had. Albus *knew* it was only a
matter of time.
He just hoped he would live to see the day that it happened, when
Wizarding Britain would come crawling back to him to save them.
It was that hope, not some "curse of life" those gods had claimed
to have laid upon him, that had kept him going all these years.
In the meantime, the darkness had grown endemic. The resurrected
Myrtle Warren (he refused to acknowledge the hyphenated
"-Sangnoir" she preferred) had finally, after a half-century
hiatus, graduated with honors and gone on to become the first
certified Ministry necromancer in nearly a century, undoing all
Albus' efforts to bury that irretrievably Dark magic once and for
all. And Pansy Parkinson -- Harper, he corrected himself -- now
headed a cult of Darkness. Oh, they didn't call it that, but
there were hundreds of wizards and witches who had been deceived
by her claim that Darkness itself was Neutral and sought to
balance the evil done in its name, while extolling the concept of
"good" Darkness with talk of warm summer nights, the womb and
other nonsense.
Pansy had grown *dangerously* clever, he noted, and not for the
first time. Considering her sweet, endearing dimness as a child,
Albus suspected she had been possessed by some dark entity during
her fifth year, possibly even at Douglas' behest, and what had
posed as her since then was actually some manner of supernatural
evil in disguise. He shook his head. If only she had accepted
her proper destiny as Draco's loving wife -- both of them might
have been saved.
And he still had no idea what Hannah Abbott had become, except
terrifying and profoundly *dangerous*.
Fortunately not every student had been corrupted by Douglas'
influence. Percy Weasley had become an invaluable ally over the
years, replacing his father as Albus' loyal man in the Ministry.
Percy was in total agreement with him that the abominations were
a threat to traditional Wizarding culture, and had dutifully
proposed law after law restricting them and the magics that they
practiced. Sadly, none had ever made it past committee; like
Albus himself, young Percy had found himself in the minority as
the new generation swept into power.
Albus took another sip of his firewhiskey. A shame, that. A
good, pliable boy, Percy had been one of Albus' choices for a
future Minister, too, but like his father before him he'd been
sidelined into a dead-end post in the Ministry because of his
politics. Such a pity he'd never reconciled with his family,
either.
Lavender Brown, her retinue and her guests had now left the
Cauldron's tap room, but in their wake a wisp of conversation
drifted back behind them, with a single recognizable word:
"firstborn". Albus scowled. Yet another perversion of the
proper order of things. The Muggleborn were supposed to keenly
desire assimilation into the greater Wizarding population, not
rejoice in their origins. That was the prime reason he'd seen to
it that no Hogwarts student had been truly punished for using the
term "mudblood" -- the sooner a Muggleborn or half-blood child
learned that their origins did them no favors, the sooner they
would become truly Wizarding. It was only logical, and had
worked so well with so many. Of course, some -- like Dolores
Umbridge -- went a bit too far, but that was the risk one took
when working to sculpt an entire society. It was another
pollution of Wizarding culture that Albus was sure he could lay
at Douglas' feet.
|
|
|
|
| 2016-09-24: Dragged along by a strange new force |
|
Posted by: robkelk - 10-17-2024, 05:54 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (6)
|
 |
Dragged along by a strange new force
by Rob Kelk, incorporating ideas from Brent Laabs and Robert M. Schroeck
I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong
– Attributed to Medea of Colchis by Jonathan Haidt, in The happiness hypothesis : finding modern truth in ancient wisdom (2006)[1]
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, QC, Canada
September 24, 2016
8:05 AM ET
It was a Saturday, and none of the newcomers to Montréal – or to Refuge as a whole – felt any strong desire to mingle with strangers yet. So they mingled with each other, and with their building manager... but not her husband.
"This is the third Saturday in a row you've gone to work," Cassiopée Bright complained.
"It can't be helped, Cassie," her husband Grahame said. "We need to have something ready to send to the beta testers, and soon. You get to talk casually with video game characters; I have to spend most of the weekend debugging a video game. I think you got the better deal, ma chérie." He gave her a kiss, readjusted his glasses, and headed out. "I'll call if I can get out early, but don't wait dinner for me if I can't."
She looked at the door that closed behind him and sighed deeply. "I won't, mon chéri." Then, having nothing better to do when alone on a weekend, she turned to her own work of reading through her copies of the documents Belldandy had left with her the day before. She walked from her kitchen to her home-office, took the stack of files about her residents out of her filing cabinet, carried them over to her desk, and sat down and started reading through them. As long as Vár was her contact in Heaven, she couldn't switch from paper files to electronic files, as much as she wanted to.
After a long moment, she heard the door open. "Did you forget something, Grahame?"
"I'm sorry, I'm not Grahame," Shirou Emiya said. "Who is Grahame?"
"My husband. He's gone to work, to spend his Saturday with Imperial Stormtroopers instead of with me. Please, Shirou, come in." She motioned to one of the chairs in her office.
"I still haven't met your husband. Does he work for Lucasfilm?" Shirou asked as he walked into the building manager's office and sat down.
"No, Grahame is a game designer. He doesn't work for LucasArts, either; he's with a small company called Motive Studios who has been hired to write a shooting game for the setting.[2] As for why he's working on a Saturday, they're getting close to the scheduled release date and they still haven't sent anything to beta testers."
"It's too bad that I don't know more about video games. I doubt that I can help him."
Cassiopée smiled at Shirou's comment. "I'm here to help you and your friends, not the other way around. But thank you. Speaking of helping you," she held up the file that she had started about him, "don't ask me how, but Belldandy managed to get you into an English-language high school..."[3]
8:57 AM ET
"As Anaxagoras said, the Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. Now, Anaxagoras wasn't the most accurate of the presocratic philosophers," Caster said, "but in this case his ideas, taken metaphorically, have some merit. We are definitely mingling with two very different people than the ones that we're used to serving: Cassiopée and Grahame. I assume the other people in this city are like them."
"They aren't that different from the Masters that we're used to," Archer told his fellow Heroic Spirit. They were both sitting in the living room of the apartment that Archer and Shirou shared, and he had introduced her to the taste of coffee. Each of the Servants was on their second mugful. "They have hopes and dreams of their own, they work, they love, and I assume they cry on occasion. What's with the philosophy, by the way?"
"Am I not allowed to have a hobby?" she asked in return, one eyebrow arched.
"Not during a Grail War... but we aren't doing that right now, are we?"
"Thanks to Verðandi's edict, we are not 'doing that right now', no," she replied, conveniently forgetting to mention that she had indulged her hobby while resting from building her underground temple back in Fuyuki City. "I suggest that you find a hobby of your own, since we will not be spending all of our time fighting and killing each other."
He took a drink of his coffee before replying. "Right, right. You've been so sure of yourself ever since the first time I met you, you know."
She smiled and chuckled... which sounded ominous because of how low-pitched her voice was. "Yes, I know. But I have so much to be sure of." Then she stopped smiling. "My mug is empty. Again."
"You'd better not have any more. That stuff'll keep you awake all night if you aren't used to it."
9:33 AM ET
Rider knew why Sakura had called her to become her Servant even if her Master did not. The two of them had much in common, even though the young woman didn't know it.
She knew what it was like to have been raped, and to have been punished for having been raped. Rider – Medusa – had been punished by being turned into a monster. From what little she had learned between being summoned and being displaced to this reality, Sakura's punishment was... more of the same.
But no more. Sakura's stepbrother had not accompanied them to this world. And, if it was within Rider's power, nobody would take his place. She had been summoned to fight for her Master; as she looked out of her bedroom window, she vowed that she would carry out her duty even if there was no Grail War in progress.
9:44 AM ET
Two of the newcomers to Montréal felt no great desire to mingle with the other displacees, either; the other Heroic Spirits were as much strangers to them as the people outside the apartment building were. So they ended up talking with each other. They were sitting at the table in the kitchen of their shared apartment, drinking tea that one of them didn't like because it was brewed from a teabag, and looking out the window at the apartment buildings' rooftop courtyard. The complex had been built as three buildings, but they were so close together that Funtom Property Management had turned them into a single residence above the ground floor.
"I was hoping to be the one to summon a Saber, specifically you," Rin admitted to the Noble Spirit in question, "but I got an Archer instead. A stuck-up, cocksure Archer, at that. How'd Emiya get to summon you?"
"I suppose that he benefited from the fortunes of war," she replied before sipping at her tea.
"It was luck?"
"Anyone who denies the existence of luck in battle is merely playing a game. Luck, like combat, isn't fair, but it happens and only a fool would deny its effect."
10:26 AM ET
Caster and Rider were in the living room of Caster's apartment, which had a view of the laundromat across the road and no curtains to block that view. It also had three bookcases with no books... yet... and two less-than-comfortable chairs which were all they had to sit on at the time. There was also a desk in the corner of the room, where a computer that neither woman knew how to use sat idle. But neither complained; the lodgings compared well with what they were used to back when they were people instead of Heroic Spirits.
"As Democritus said, wisdom frees the soul from passions," Caster pointed out.
"Then let me never become wise," Rider replied, "for I am a woman of my passions." Both women were speaking Mycenaean Greek, which was predominant during Medusa's time and still used a century later during Medea's lifetime.
"And look at what passions got you. Nobody but me remembers the stories about the horse-breeder that you used to be, Mae Gorgo." Both women smiled at Caster's use of the name on Rider's identity papers in this world. "They all remember the monster that Athena turned you into."
"That wasn't my fault!"
Caster held up a hand to interrupt Rider. "Oh, I'm well aware of that. It was my following my own passions that lead me to kill my children instead of letting the oath-breaker that I had married have them. Even now I'm surprised that I didn't suffer the wrath of the gods for my kin-killing."
"We're women. Who cares what we do? Not the gods, that's certain. Besides, weren't you acting in the place of the Furies and punishing Jason?"
"It would be hubris of the worst sort for me to assume I was the gods' agent, especially in a case of kin-killing. In both my children's and your cases, they and you paid the price for someone else's passions. And I must not allow that to happen again. I must become and remain wise."
Rider thought for a moment. "I admit that your chosen path is worth following, for you. Even so, I would not want to follow that path. I'll grant that I like reading, but I don't take that hobby to your extreme. I'm a person who needs physical attainments, not just mental stimulation."
11:12 AM ET
"Shiro," Cassiopée asked, "would you help me make lunch for everyone?"
"Certainly," he replied. Then he asked, "Bright-san, wasn't your hair brown yesterday?"
"Oh, that. I was trying out a different look. This is my natural colour," she said while gesturing to her now-black hair.
11:14 AM ET
Sakura didn't want to leave her apartment. Or her bed.
Not because she didn't want to meet anyone, although that thought wasn't completely wrong. It was more that she felt like she wasn't allowed to do something the previous night... but all she had done was sleep.
And dream. Strange dreams about somebody called Gauri,[4] and frustrating dreams where she couldn't do what she knew she needed to do... but she didn't know what that was.
At least her stepbrother Shinji hadn't visited her that night. She realized that, as long as she was in Montreal,<!-- Typesetting note: No accent on the e; they aren't fluent in French yet --> he never would.
And that gave her pause. She looked at the bare wall of her bedroom, but didn't really see it. She was lost in her thoughts.
Shinji had done things to her. Things that she didn't want to do with him, or anyone else because she was a proper Yamato nadeshiko and didn't do that kind of thing... except that Shinji made her do that kind of thing. And maybe she did want to do that kind of thing ever since she met Shirou. Could she do those things with Shirou? Would he want her that way? Or any other way?
She knew that she wanted him.
Maybe that way, maybe not that way. And she caught herself sliding her hand under the covers. Sakura stopped herself before she started; she was a proper Yamato nadeshiko, after all.
She knew that she didn't want anyone else to have him. Not even her Servant, Rider.
She had to leave her apartment. She needed to find Shirou, and make sure he wasn't with anyone who wasn't her.
And with that, Sakura finally got out of bed – nearly stumbling because it was higher off the floor than any bed she'd ever slept in back in Japan – and got dressed.
She had a boyfriend to find.
And to protect from the other girls in the building. Shirou was her boyfriend, not anybody else's.
Noon ET
"Lunch is served," Cassiopée announced as Shirou brought out the first bowls of the tonkatsu ramen that the two of them had prepared. The aroma of the pork broth filled the bistro's air.
"Ladies first," he said as he placed the bowls in front of Rin and Sakura, which brought a smile to the latter girl's face. "That's something they do here." He went back to the kitchen for more bowls as Cassiopée headed behind the bistro's bar.
"It's time for the news," she explained as she switched on the large-screen television... but didn't see the show that she expected.
"It's about time you turned this thing on," the person in the show said, before stepping through the screen and hovering just above the bar. "These big screens are great for moving through. Hi there, I'm Belldandy's sister Urd."
"One of the Norns?" Shirou asked while bringing two more bowls of ramen out of the kitchen. Placing them at Saber and Cassiopée's seats, he turned to pay full attention to the dark-skinned megami. "Will you be staying for lunch?"
Urd shook her head. "It would be nice if I could, but I have to get back to Heaven soon. We've got another group like you folks who are on their way to Disney World, and I need to be ready in case something goes wrong. Even though it probably won't. I'm just here to correct an error."
"Somebody made a mistake?" Rin asked worriedly.
"Yggdrasil did, but we caught it in time." Nobody but Cassiopée had any idea what Urd meant by Yggdrasil. "Montreal's a bilingual city; you were supposed to get both local languages, not just one. But that's easily enough corrected."
Caster payed close attention to what Urd was about to do, in the hopes that she'd learn something new about divine magic. But her hopes were in vain; Urd reached into a pocket and pulled out a bottle of soap and a stick with a loop on the end, opened the bottle, dipped the loop into the soap, and started blowing bubbles.
The bubbles drifted throughout the bistro. As they touched the foreheads of the displacees, the bubbles burst. Within three minutes, everybody but Urd and Cassiopée had soap on their foreheads.
Urd smiled as she closed the bottle and put it and the stick back in her pocket. "Vous devriez pouvoir comprendre ce que je dis maintenant."
The newcomers from Fuyuki City realized to their surprise that, yes, they could understand her.
"Et maintenant je dois partir," Urd added as she floated back to and through the television set, waving as she left. "Until next time!"
After she was gone and the television started showing the lunchtime news, Caster turned to Cassiopée, an annoyed look on her face. "Just what sort of magic was that?"
"That version of Urd is known as an alchemist, not a spellcaster," she explained, much to Caster's displeasure. "Although she can do both types of magic. If I may suggest, be happy that it worked, not sad that you didn't see how it worked."
As Shirou headed back to the kitchen, Souichirou commented, "I'm surprised that the gods made a mistake."
"I'm not," Rider commented sourly, remembering Athena. "I am surprised that she'd admit to making a mistake, though."
"God does not make mistakes," Rin insisted, with Saber nodding in agreement.
"Ah," Cassiopée replied, "but the megami are not the One God of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, and are thus fallible."
Rin thought for a moment as she ate her lunch. "You putting it that way does clear up that mystery."
"It's a matter of expectations. As Xenophanes said," Souichirou deliberately copied Caster's style, "mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form. It's comforting to know that, at least in Verðandi and Urðr's case, this is true."
"And the Norns are sisters, are they not?" Archer asked.
"That is what Urðr claimed. Perhaps all of the gods are simply beings like us who have abilities that we do not yet possess."
"You risk hubris there, Kuzuki-sensei," Rider warned her Master's history teacher as Shirou placed bowls in front of both her and Caster.
By the time Shirou brought Kuzuki's, Archer's, and his own lunches out of the kitchen, the others had made good progress in eating their own ramen. Sitting down to start on his own bowl, Shirou asked, "Why did Urd give us fluency in French as well as English?"
Rin replied, "Cassiopée explained that while you were in the kitchen. The short version is that central Montreal, where we live, is fully bilingual in French and English, so we need both languages."
"C'est vrai, mon brave." Cassiopée continued in English, "It isn't unusual to hear a short conversation here where one person speaks French and the other speaks English. I've been told that the displacees in Ottawa only received fluency in English, though, despite Gatineau being directly across the river from that city."
"Ah." The displacees — at least, the Masters — had heard of Ottawa, but Gatineau was new to them.
"You know, this ramen has a bit of a different taste to it," Archer said. "Not a bad taste, just different."
"I couldn't get some of the ingredients that I'm used to using," Shirou replied. "And I thought you Heroic Spirits didn't need to eat."
Archer grinned. "We don't need to if you don't mind us draining mana from our masters, or from random passers-by. This works, too." He pointed at his food when he said that, and Rider quite happily slurped her own noodles in apparent agreement.
Rin looked at Caster. "Since you can stay alive by eating food now, are you still planning on marrying Kuzuki-sensei?"
Caster smiled and laughed, but her smile had an edge to it that Kuzuki wasn't sure he liked. "As Aristotle claimed Heraclitus said, it is harder to fight against pleasure than against anger." She turned to her fiancée. "I'm willing to continue our engagement as long as you keep me happy, Souichirou-san, but if you start taking me for granted, the wedding's off. I got enough of that treatment from Jason to last me two lifetimes, thank you very much."
"I thought that you wanted to free your soul from passions," commented Rider.
Caster laughed at Ridedr's comment. "Well, as Thestorides said, hypocrisy is endemic to human nature."
"Did he?" Souichirou asked, wondering how she knew of Thestorides. "None of his works survived to the modern day."
"That's a pity. Perhaps I should write them down for you."
From the next table over, Cassiopée said, "I'd like to read them. It's too bad that nobody in this reality would believe that they're authentic."
Souichirou chose to remain silent about that comment.
1:37 PM ET
Cassiopée was back at work in her office, but not reading files. Instead, she was discussing with one of her residents what she could do with her life.
"I'm tired of existing for the benefit of men. I want to do something on my own that I can call my own. Back when I was a person, I used to breed horses that were almost as fast as the wind; you could imagine you were flying while riding one of my mares. Now that I'm a Heroic Spirit with a human body, can I do that here?" Rider gestured toward the window behind Cassiopée, not looking at the sheer gauze drape or the wall on the other side of the light well, but instead pointing at the entire city.
Cassiopée shook her head. "No, there's no place anywhere in Montréal to breed horses, at least not where it would be safe for them to live. And they can't keep up with our autos, either."
"Your..." Rider was only puzzled for a brief moment. "Oh, yes, the mechanical conveyances. Being summoned to fight a Grail War did give us some knowledge of the current world. And that makes me wonder whether somebody summoned us to this world, since we were given knowledge of the local languages in the process."
"If you were summoned, it wasn't by me."
Medusa thought for a short moment. "I don't know why, but I trust that you are telling me the truth, Ms. Bright. If I can't raise horses, then I don't care what I do; I just want to be creative."
"Before I married Grahame, I used to live near some pottery studios on rue St. Denis. They're only a half-hour walk from here, or a few minutes away by bus. Would you be interested in working with clay to make things that are useful or decorative?"
"Or both," Rider replied. "Creating art as a result of the soil giving itself to us sounds like it's exactly what I want to do with my life. Would anyone in these studios be willing to accept me as an apprentice in their art?"
"Their style of teaching is less formal than a master-and-apprentice arrangement, but some of them are willing to teach what they know. They're closed tomorrow; we can take a look at their studios on Monday so you can see who you might want to learn from."
"I have that much of a choice in my life, here?" Rider smiled. "I believe I'm going to like it here."
2:16 PM ET
"Now that we can all speak French as well as English, I see no reason not to take that teaching job at Formation Artistique au Cœur de l'Éducation. That means I'll continue to be be your history teacher."
Kuzuki had brought his apartment's kitchen chairs into the living room so that there were enough to go around. Some day soon, after he'd received his first pay, he and Caster would be able to buy more furniture.
"If they offer the job to you," Sakura pointed out.
"My resumé, no, my curriculum vitae is very good. It appears that Vár wrote it for me."
"I hesitate to accept favours from gods," Rin replied. "They have already forbidden fighting the Grail War here. However, it will be comforting to see a familiar face at Fine Arts Core Education, Kuzuki-sensei."
Shirou smiled. "I wonder how long it took then to come up with names that have the same acronym in both languages."
"There are some things you need to know before you enrol at F.A.C.E., though," Kuzuki said. "First, unlike high schools in Japan, most of the schools here do not have a uniform dress code. In fact, F.A.C.E. encourages the students' creativity."
"We don't have to wear uniforms?" Sakura asked, unconsciously smoothing a wrinkle out of her own uniform's skirt.
"That's correct. Mind you, it isn't forbidden, either. Second, this school teaches classes from all twelve years of the mandatory educational curriculum. Since you are transfer students into the high school program, you will stand out."
"I've never attended an escalator school before," Rin commented.
"And transfer students always stand out," added Sakura.
"Third, F.A.C.E. is a performing-arts high school. Do any of you sculpt, paint, sing, dance, or act? Those are the main artistic programs at the school."
"I've never done anything like that at all," Sakura admitted.
"When I go to karaoke with my friends, they sometimes say that I sound like Ueda Kana," Rin said.[5]
"I've played at being a toku character," Shirou said. "But I usually end up playing a villain. Does that count?"[6]
"I don't see why it wouldn't count," Kuzuki replied. "Matou-san, we'll figure out something for you to do. Emiya-san and Tohsaka-san, do either of you feel comfortable making your acting or singing an important part of your studies?"
They thought about their teacher's question for a moment. Finally, Rin said, "If that's what it takes for us to be able to stay in a bilingual school, I'm willing to learn how to sing professionally."
Kuzuki shook his head. "Not professionally. Artistically. Remember that F.A.C.E. focuses on the students' creativity."
"Ah." Rin smiled as she continued. "If it's an expression of one's self, then perhaps I could learn to use music as a way to work magic."
"And I could try acting, if Emiya-san does as well," Sakura added.
"I guess. But wouldn't we be in different grades?"
"Oh. Maybe we could be in a play together anyway."
Before anyone else could object to, or even notice, Sakura's attempt to get closer to Shirou, Kuzuki said, "I believe that's settled, then."
2:53 PM ET
Shirou and Cassoipée were out -- she was showing him where to buy groceries -- so Archer found himself alone in the apartment that he shared with the teenager.
He took the opportunity to do something that, at the time, no other Heroic Spirit in the building knew how to do.
He turned on the apartment's computer and Googled himself.
The first thing that he realized was that the 2016 Internet was faster to respond than the 2006 Internet was.
The second thing he realized was that he got far more results for "Shirou Emiya" than he expected. "What's this 'Fate/stay night' that's mentioned in most of the results?" he muttered. Then he started reading the pages. If anybody happened to be passing by, they'd have heard the strangest comments from Archer. "So, we're characters in an eroge. Better not tell Rin. I guess Shirou's the protagonist, because I'm certainly not getting any." ... "Oh, wonderful; everybody in this world knows who I am." ... "Shit, I don't win in any of the routes?" ... "What, Mordred's a girl, too? Are Gilgamesh and I the only male Heroic Spirits?" ... "Okay, Berserkers and Lancers are males, too." ... "Ew. I'm not an ally of justice or a counter guardian any more, but for Sakura's sake, I'll make an exception. Must remember to help Rider kill Zōken and Shinji when we get home."
There was a knock at his door just after he said the last of those. Turning off the monitor, he got up and opened the door, to see Rider standing there. "May I come in?"
"Sure. You couldn't stay away from me, could you?" he added with a grin.
"Not after what I heard you just say."
One of the perils of putting the computer desk so close to the apartment's front door was that people could hear him when he was using it. "Ah. I'd better be quieter than I was, then. Do you know why I think the world would be better off if Sakura's relatives were dead?"
"I do, but I have to ask you to leave them alive. Despite everything they've done, Sakura still cares for them."
Archer sighed deeply. He decided against mentioning the "Heaven's Feel" route in the game, instead saying, "We can cure Stockholm syndrome nowadays."
"What's Stockholm syndrome?"
3:27 PM ET
Medea and Souichirou were alone in their own apartment. The kitchen chairs were back in the kitchen, and the apartment's residents were using them, sharing a bottle of inexpensive wine that he'd bought at the dépanneur next door. "I've made better wine than this, and I'm no good at making wine," Caster complained.
"We'll know better than to buy it next time. Medea, exactly when did you read the works of Thestorides?"
She tried to dodge his question. "Oh, I don't recall."
"In your previous life, perhaps, before you became a Heroic Spirit?"
"That sounds right."
"When you lived, and died, a half-millennium before Thestorides lived? Assuming there was an actual Thestorides, of course."
"Ah." She tried to laugh it off, but her chuckle sounded forced even to herself. "How upset are you that I name-dropped somebody whose works I've never read?"
"I'm not upset at all," he replied, to her surprise. "You told us a bald-faced lie in order to support your own position, and you did it very well. I've done similar things myself many times before we met. If I wasn't a history teacher, I would never have noticed."
"It doesn't trouble you that you can't trust your betrothed?"
"I can trust you as much as you can trust me."
"Am I a tool for your ambitions, Souichirou Kuzuki?" She looked annoyed.
"As much as I am a tool for yours, Medea of Colchis." He looked untroubled. "I have no intention of throwing you away the way Jason did, though. That man was a fool, to give up your company and your magical power for political gain."
Medea muttered, "Political gain and a pretty face." In a more normal tone of voice, she asked, "Are you going to tell the others?"
Souichirou shook his head. "Why would I? We're to be wed, and that means I'll keep your secrets to the same extent that I expect you to keep mine."
"I'm happy to hear that." She walked over to him, close enough that they could touch. "Tell me, Souichirou, do you love me?"
"I do love you, Medea," he said with a smile. "And do you love me?"
"Yes," she smiled in return.
Each was willing to trust that the other spoke the truth... or, at least, to act like they trusted the other. They both knew that one could never be sure when an admitted liar was lying, and she still had concerns that she couldn't trust her own tastes in men. Then they kissed anyway.
4:30 PM ET
As Cassiopée was winding up the paperwork for the day, her personal phone rang. "'Allo?"
"Hi, Cassie."
"Grahame!" She turned on her phone's camera, making it a video call. "Does this call mean you're coming home for dinner?"
"Got it in one, love."
"And I actually understood that idiom. Urd was here at lunch time to give the residents fluency in French."
"And something rubbed off on you?"
"Perhaps."
"You did make a selfless wish yesterday. Maybe the Norns decided to give you something for yourself as well. Is there anything you want for dinner?"
"I was thinking of trying that pizza place across the road from us."
"Alto, right?" Grahame asked. "I'll order enough pizza for everybody just before I get out of here, and pick it up after I park the car. Is meat lovers good?"
"We should get something vegetarian as well, just in case somebody doesn't eat meat."
"Meat lovers and vegetarian. I knew I married you for your brain, love."
"That isn't what you said during our honeymoon!" Cassiopée said that with a smile.
His smile matched hers. "I married you for that, too. I should be home by six."
"I'll be waiting!"
5:12 PM ET
"Saber, I get the distinct feeling that you don't like me. Or Archer or Rider, either." Caster had cornered her in the residence's bistro.
Saber scowled at Caster. "You should know why I do not associate with you."
"Oh, please don't tell me that you think the consort of a king isn't fit company for you, Your Highness." Sarcasm dripped off the last two words.
Saber looked cross. "The correct form of address is 'My Lord'.[7] And you cannot be as stupid as you just seemed to be."
Caster smiled. "Of course I'm not that stupid. I," she pointed one finger at herself, "just got you," she used the same finger to point at Saber, "to admit to being a member of the ruling class and thus my social peer, after all." Saber was shocked at both that comment and her own lapse of secrecy. "I don't yet know how intelligent Grahame Bright is, but I feel confident matching wits with anyone else in residence here. I suspect that only Cassiopée or Souichirou would give me any challenge."
Saber looked at Caster with lidded eyes. "I give you the same warning that Rider gave your Master: Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
"Oh, but a haughty spirit is a prerequisite to becoming a king or a queen, isn't it? Certainly Jason acted that way. But he isn't here. You are. Everything's a battle to you, isn't it, Saber? I fight when I need to, not because it's expected of me to fight. And I fight with magic, not with weapons."
"I will be on my guard for both forms of attack, then."
"And that statement tells me that you do not trust what I say. You are right to distrust me, Saber, whatever your real name is. However, we are not fighting a Grail War at the moment. You might be a ruler, but at the moment you are a ruler without a domain or allies. Find yourself an ally or two who isn't your Master here before you're forced to fight alone. And find yourself a hobby before you succumb to what our Masters call karoshi. Relax."
"I do not need your advice, Caster."
"Oh, Saber. Stubborn, stubborn Saber." Caster laughed that ominous chuckle of hers. "You need to get to know us better. As Michael Corleone said, keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
Saber looked puzzled. "I am not familiar with that philosopher."
"I'm not surprised; he's far too new for you to be familiar with him. My fiancé introduced me to his work. And to help keep you close, allow me to introduce myself: in the stories told about me here, my name is Medea."
Saber did not reply... but Caster noticed a quick reaction; Saber had recognized her name, even though she tried to hide it.
After a long moment, Caster scowled at Saber and said, "Fine. Be that way. But do not expect me to come to your rescue at a moment's notice in this world."
6:14 PM ET
"This is an intriguing form of sustenance," Saber said while eating a slice of pizza. "I don't recall having ever seen anything like it. Thank you for bringing it home for us, Grahame."
"It's very much like the 'tables' that Celaeno spoke of in the Aeneid," Souichirou commented, "although these have meat as well as vegetables."
"Meat or vegetables," Rin pointed out.
"True. The name 'pizza' wasn't used until the end of the tenth century, though."
Archer frowned. "And we're getting into a discussion about who invented our dinner. We definitely need to get out of this building and meet other people."
"If you want," Shirou said.
"As Parmenides said, it is indifferent to me where I am to begin, for there shall I return again. Although Parmenides never said when he would return," Caster admitted. "This neighbourhood is as good as any to begin our exploration of the refuge we have found ourselves in, and better than many in that Cassiopée and Grahame can act as our guides."
Rin replied, "And as Thomas Wolfe said, you can't go home again. I would prefer to remain the person that I am instead of being changed by travel."
"You can't stay in your bedroom forever. We have to go to school, at the least," Sakura pointed out... as much as she would prefer that Rin not attend classes with Shirou.
"Perhaps we should begin by exploring the area around our new home," Caster allowed. "More so than a few of us already have," she added, remembering the wine she and her fiancé had drank earlier that day.
"That would be the easiest option," Grahame replied. "And we do need to buy each of you some clothes and housewares."
"And some decent tea, please," Rin replied.
"When do we go?" Sakura asked.
"Tomorrow? I have the day off."
"Well," Cassiopée smiled, "If you're coming along, I can take the girls to some of the better boutiques. Funtom is paying me quite well for my services."
Grahame smiled in return. "You, my dear, are a clotheshorse. And I for one am willing to indulge you in your hobby now that we can afford it."
"I have one problem with this plan," Rin said. "Tomorrow is Sunday."
"The Lord's Day," added Saber.
"Religion is not so respected in Quebec nowadays," Cassiopée said. "M. Kuzuki, are you familiar with the Quiet Revolution?"
"I have heard of it, but I am not familiar with the details," the history teacher admitted.
"I was hoping you would be able to explain it to the others. Suffice it to say that Quebec was a backwater until we broke free of the control of the Church."
Saber wasn't happy to hear that, but she said nothing. Perhaps there was some nuance she was missing, and as a king she'd had her own arguments with the bishops and deacons. Still, even as a guest in this land, it bothered her that the Lord's Day wasn't given due respect.
Cassiopée continued, "However, there are still a large number of churches in Montréal, including a street-front church a block north of here.[8] They celebrate Mass in English at 20 heures... no, I should say 8 P.M. since we're speaking English. You might want to give them a try."
"That would probably be the best option, at least to begin with," Rin replied.
"Then it's decided," Grahame said. "Tomorrow, we build up your wardrobes."
Notes
Continued in Ill-Fated Names, and to be continued in Diary of a Montreal Shopping Trip.
- RK: If you only know of Medea through modern popular culture (and especially if you only know of her through Fate/stay night), set aside an hour and listen to "Worst Marriage Ever: The story of Jason and Medea". You might be surprised by the person described in the myths, and how different she is from the depictions of her in the 20th and 21st centuries.
- RK: Don't blame Grahame for the loot-box microtransaction controversy, though. It wasn't his fault!
- RK: Which, by the laws in effect in Quebec both at the time the story is set and when the story was written, should have been impossible. This will not be the last time that one of the megami works a minor, unobtrusive miracle on behalf of the displacees without being asked. Eventually, the Ultimate Force will notice... but not today.
- BL: Yeah, I hate those Slayers dreams, first Gourry, Lina blows something up, and then it gets those weird reverse-mermaid things with the big fish heads. Wait, what were we talking about again?
- RK: Rin, please stop leaning on the fourth wall.
- RK: Shirou, if you lean on the fourth wall, too, it's going to break...
- RMS: The monarchs of England didn't start using "Highness" as a title until Richard II in the 14th Century, about a millennium after Artoria's time.
- RK: Well, there was in 2016. It closed at some time between 2018 and 2024.
|
|
|
|
| 2016-09-25: Ill-Fated Names |
|
Posted by: robkelk - 10-09-2024, 07:12 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (1)
|
|
Ill-Fated Names
A double drabble by Rob Kelk
One of the residents at Appartements Mont-Royal Sud sat down beside her landlord, Cassiopée. "That looks good. I'll have it, too."
After ordering lunch, she asked, "Cassiopée, what is the derivation of your name? It almost sounds Greek."
The building manager sighed, then answered the question. "It's the French pronunciation of 'Cassiopeia', who was the mother of Andromeda in Greek myths. The character exists to boast that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids."
"I trust you don't have that amount of hubris. How was she punished?"
"Grahame and I don't have any children to boast about yet. As for the myth, Poseidon flooded her homeland and sent a monster to attack it, and the only way to stop it was to sacrifice Andromeda to the monster. But Perseus," Cassiopée hesitated for a moment, "killed the monster and took Andromeda as his wife."
"So she was another woman who was seen as existing to please men. My time was not a good one for people of our gender. I recognize the name Perseus; I'm not going to ask how that... man killed the monster, or maybe I should call it the other monster."
"Thank you for not asking, Medusa."
|
|
|
|
| 2016-11-19: Bunny Who? |
|
Posted by: robkelk - 09-25-2024, 08:22 PM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (1)
|
|
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario
November 19, 2016
"I want to be an actress when I grow up!"
Rob smiled. Last week, Chibiusa wanted to grow up to be a nurse. The week before, she wanted to be Prime Minister... until Rei (the Senshi, not the Misaka Sister) pointed out that Usagi was going to be Queen, so she'd be working for her mother. "Why an actress?"
"Because I can pretend to be everything I want to grow up to be," she replied matter-of-factly.
"That makes sense. But some actresses do specialize in particular kinds of roles."
Minako turned from her conversation with Niiko to look at Rob and Chibiusa. "That's called 'typecasting'," she commented.
"Maybe I should be typecast!" Chibiusa shot back. "People keep telling me that I have the right name for it."
Rob was puzzled by her remark - what happened to being able to play any role? Niiko didn't seem to know what Chibiusa was talking about either, although it was difficult at the best of times to guess how any of the Misaka Sisters reacted to things. Minako, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly what Chibiusa was talking about. "In that case, I'll help you learn how to act, but you'll need to get somebody else to help you with the martial arts."
"Makoto-oneesan could help me there."
"If you ask her politely, maybe she would," Minako replied.
"Oh, Niiko finally understands, Niiko says. Niiko can help teach you how to use a pistol, Niiko offers in friendship."
Chibiusa grinned. "Yeah, that'll help. Thanks, Niiko-neesan!"
"I'm not that much older than you are, Niiko complains under her breath."
Then it finally hit Rob. He was so used to thinking of Usagi Small Lady Serenity as "Chibiusa" that he'd all but forgotten that the name on the ID Belldandy had provided for her was "Usagi Chiba" ... or, in English, Bunny. Of course she had the right name to become an actress specializing in martial-arts movies. "If that's what you want to do with your life, I'm sure that we'll all support you. Just remember that it'll take a lot of work to succeed."
"I'm not lazy like my mother was when she was my age," Chibiusa replied. "I know it'll take a lot of work to succeed at anything."
|
|
|
|
| Howdy! |
|
Posted by: MilkmanConspiracy - 09-17-2024, 11:10 AM - Forum: Introductions
- Replies (5)
|
 |
Howdy!
I figure I ought to pop in and introduce myself. I’m MilkmanConspiracy and I’m a contributor on ATT. I’ve been contributing to ATT as a way to refresh my knowledge on media while doing something productive. (This board is about more than ATT of course)
My hobbies are cartography, going into the country, and looking into video game console history.
Let me know if I can be of help, and it’s a pleasure to meet you,
- MilkmanConspiracy
|
|
|
|
| 2016-11-08: Runtime Error |
|
Posted by: robkelk - 09-12-2024, 11:46 AM - Forum: Stories
- Replies (2)
|
|
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 8, 2016
4:44 pm ET
"That's odd."
"What's odd?" Rob asked, leaving his coffee cup on the table and walking over to where Kazari was performing system maintenance on the common room's computer.
"This isn't what I thought I was downloading."
Blossom's building manager looked over the resident white-hat hacker's shoulder at the screen.
Welcome to Master PC
Welcome to the Master Command Center...
where the Master allows you to become a virtual god to the people around you...
Now, you possess the power to bend their reality to your specifications.
You are the Master's representative
Faster than even he thought possible, Rob grabbed his phone and hit the "PANIC" speed-dial button that wasn't on any of the residents' phones and had been added a week earlier, when various celestials had taken personal responsibility for each residence. After one ring, the line connected. Before the person on the other end could reply, Rob said, "Skuld! We have an emergency down here!"
Thirty seconds later, Skuld was present and looking at the screen, with a very serious expression on her face. "Where did this come from?"
"I thought I was downloading a patch for the Pi's operating system from GitHub," Kazari replied. "I got this instead."
"I see. You haven't touched it." Skuld's statement was more a command than a question.
"As soon as Rob-oji reacted the way he did, I knew better than to do anything with it," she replied.
"We have no intention of touching it," Rob replied. "As tempting as it might be to issue a global command to raise everyone's IQ by ten points, or to 100, whichever is higher." [1]
Approval started to show on Skuld's face for a brief moment; then she frowned. "Unfortunately, that wouldn't be a good idea, as much as it would help the individuals affected. You need to leave their lives alone."
Rob nodded. "They're their lives. Can we at least issue a global command undoing everything that Master PC may have done?"
"I'll do that from Yggdrasil."
Blossom Apartments, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
November 8, 2016
4:44 pm ET
"That's done. Now for the next upgrade."
Rob half-listened to Kazari performing system maintenance on the common room's computer. Woah. Deja vu, he thought.
The computer kept running, completely normally.
Yggdrasil
November 8, 2016
4:45 pm ET
"I hate having to do system restores. There are so many things that can go wrong, especially in this situation."
Urd looked over Skuld's shoulder at the screen. "Would you rather have that thing loose?"
"Ew! No!"
Footnotes
Quoted text from the original "Master PC" story. No, I'm not going to provide a link.
- BL: You can't cure stupid.
|
|
|
|
|
![[Image: 483px-Jiggs_Dinner.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Jiggs_Dinner.jpg/483px-Jiggs_Dinner.jpg)
![[Image: PWBGCoF.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/PWBGCoF.jpg)
![[Image: USns4HW.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/USns4HW.jpg)
![[Image: Zrai4Q5.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/Zrai4Q5.jpg)
![[Image: r9kJA3t.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/r9kJA3t.jpg)
![[Image: t6pbdz4.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/t6pbdz4.jpg)
![[Image: FSMx1wX.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/FSMx1wX.jpg)
![[Image: QENcoJf.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/QENcoJf.jpg)
![[Image: 7vrnQoL.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/7vrnQoL.jpg)
